sitemap

<entry-title>Sitemap</entry-title>

Authors

Ross McDonald

Problem

Enable the automatic generation of sitemap.xml from existing HTML by specifying a minimal amount of semantic information.

Countless sites contain HTML navigation constructs which already detail parts of the information required to build a sitemap file. Typically these constructs leverage link elements which conveniently expose an 'href' attribute. Add a way to specify 'priority' and maybe 'changefreq' and enough would be in place for machines to build a site map.

Currently the alternative is to either write a site map manually, or supply information to a generator (the said data being disconnected from your site).

Existing standards

The sitemap protocol is very simple.

Per the microformats process:

• sitemap-examples
• sitemap-formats
• sitemap-brainstorming
• sitemap-issues